The spring phenology of arboreal beetles and spiders and their potential as alternative prey for birds mistimed with the caterpillar peak

The spring phenology of arboreal beetles and spiders and their potential as alternative prey for birds mistimed with the caterpillar peak | Authorea try { document.documentElement.classList.add('js'); } catch (e) { } var _gaq = _gaq || []; _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'G-8VDV14Y67G']); _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']); (function() { var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true; ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s); })(); Skip to main content Preprints Collections Wiley Open Research IET Open Research Ecological Society of Japan All Collections About About Authorea FAQs Contact Us Quick Search anywhere Search for preprint articles, keywords, etc. Search Search ADVANCED SEARCH SCROLL Ecology and Evolution This is a preprint and has not been peer reviewed. Data may be preliminary. 12 May 2026 V1 Latest version Share on The spring phenology of arboreal beetles and spiders and their potential as alternative prey for birds mistimed with the caterpillar peak Authors : Ivan Bialy [email protected] , Jack Shutt [email protected] [email protected] , Megan Stamp [email protected] , Albert Phillimore [email protected] , and Kirsty Macphie 0000-0002-9824-4833 [email protected] Authors Info & Affiliations https://doi.org/10.22541/authorea.15003146/v1 16 views 6 downloads Contents Abstract Supplementary Material Information & Authors Metrics & Citations View Options References Figures Tables Media Share Abstract Climate warming has advanced the timing of springtime life-history events (phenology) across many species. The match/mismatch hypothesis (MMH) predicts that consumer species that are asynchronous to an ephemeral resource show reduced fitness. MMH research often focuses on simplified food chains and a primary resource, yet many consumer species can switch diet if required, which may buffer the consequences of asynchrony with a preferred resource. The trophic interaction between spring arboreal caterpillars and breeding insectivorous passerines, such as blue tits and great tits, is a well-established MMH study-system. However, caterpillars are not the only invertebrate guild used as prey. Here, we examine the phenological distribution of beetle and spider abundance, two alternative prey guilds for a range of breeding passerines. Using data collected across a 220 km transect of Scotland, encompassing 44 mixed deciduous woodland sites, we address four questions: i) Do beetle and spider abundance show a peaked phenological distribution during spring? ii) Do the phenological distributions of either taxon vary among years and tree taxa? iii) Does the overall abundance of either taxon vary among tree taxa, or iv) with temperature? We also compare the average phenological distribution of beetles and spiders to the caterpillar peak. We found beetle abundance peaked on all tree taxa in early June, while spider abundance decreased linearly throughout spring. Birch and oak hosted the most beetles and spiders, respectively. Average spider abundance increased by 10% oC-1, whilst beetle abundance showed no trend with temperature. Overall, our results demonstrate both tree taxon-specific and annual variation in the abundance and phenological distributions of two important alternative prey guilds. Our results illustrate potential for diet switching for mistimed birds, as the abundance of beetles was consistently higher than caterpillars throughout spring and spider abundance was higher earlier in the season, prior to the peak in caterpillars. Supplementary Material File (supplementary material.pdf) supplementary material Download 1.42 MB Information & Authors Information Version history V1 Version 1 12 May 2026 Collection Ecology and Evolution Authors Affiliations Ivan Bialy [email protected] The University of Edinburgh School of Biological Sciences, Edinburgh, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, EH9 3FL View all articles by this author Jack Shutt [email protected] [email protected] The University of Edinburgh School of Biological Sciences, Edinburgh, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, EH9 3FL View all articles by this author Megan Stamp [email protected] The University of Edinburgh School of Biological Sciences, Edinburgh, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, EH9 3FL View all articles by this author Albert Phillimore [email protected] The University of Edinburgh School of Biological Sciences, Edinburgh, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, EH9 3FL View all articles by this author Kirsty Macphie 0000-0002-9824-4833 [email protected] The University of Edinburgh School of Biological Sciences, Edinburgh, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, EH9 3FL View all articles by this author Metrics & Citations Metrics Article Usage 16 views 6 downloads .FvxKWukQNSOunydq8rnd { width: 100px; } Citations Download citation Ivan Bialy, Jack Shutt, Megan Stamp, et al. The spring phenology of arboreal beetles and spiders and their potential as alternative prey for birds mistimed with the caterpillar peak. Authorea . 12 May 2026. DOI: https://doi.org/10.22541/authorea.15003146/v1 If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download. For more information or tips please see 'Downloading to a citation manager' in the Help menu . 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